Abstract:
The Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans (ARSMA) was designed to measure the degree of acculturation of both psychiatric patients and people without psychological disorders. The test consists of 20 multiple-choice questions, each with 5 responses that correspond to a Likert scale with five numerical values: 1 - Very Mexican, 2 - Mexican-oriented Bicultural, 3 - "True" Bicultural, 4 - Anglo-oriented Bicultural, and 5 - Very Anglicized. The questions themselves address the following subjects: language familiarity and usage, ethnic interaction, ethnic pride and identity, cultural heritage, and generational proximity. The test may be given individually or in groups and in English or Spanish depending on the preference of the examinee. In the case of psychotic individuals, information from caretakers should be used to supplement the self-report. The score is determined by totaling the numerical values of the responses and dividing by 20 at the bottom of the test form. Norms for the ARSMA were established on 222 respondents, 88 of whom were hospitalized psychotic Mexican American whose native language was Spanish. The other 134 respondents were students of bilingualism and staff members of the San Antonio Hospital with predominantly Mexican and Mexican-American backgrounds. Only 14 of these respondents were Anglos. Internal reliability of the ARSMA is .88 among unhospitalized respondents and .81 for the hospitalized sample. Test-retest reliability was assessed for 16 of the psychotic respondents 5 weeks after the original test session, and the significance of the .72 coefficient of stability was at the .01 level. For 26 of the unhospitalized sample the correlation was .80, also significant at the .01 level. the validity of the ratings by the hospitalized patients was established by comparing the ratings the patients did themselves with ratings done by caretakers for those patients. The correlation between these sets of scores was .75, significant at the .01 level. SEE ALSO: Cuellar, I., Harris, L. C., & Jasso, R. (1980). An acculturation scale for Mexican American normal and clinical populations. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 2 (3), 199-217.